


The Fine Art of Falling Apart

by nagia



Category: Batman Beyond, Batman: The Animated Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce, Barbara, and how a relationship that should never have happened somehow did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Fine Art of Falling Apart

**Author's Note:**

> Written for prozacpark

 

 

(one)

Leaving again. NW stuff. Back ASAP.

\--Dick

Barbara hates to think that Dick Grayson could directly cause anything she does. She is not a reactionary person, she tells herself. She is a proactive, independent, liberated woman. Dickie the Dick has never made her do anything.

So when she finds the note on her counter it is not really because of Dick that she picks up the phone and calls Bruce.

It isn't really because he's gone again, running away from her, from Bruce, from himself, from the sky, for all she knows. She calls Bruce because Dick's note is eerily Batlike in its terseness.

Alfred answers the phone, but he carries it to Bruce within moments of her asking for him.

"He's gone again," she says.

Ever the Batman, Bruce's first comment is, "Did he say why?"

"Nightwing stuff," she quotes, voice harsh and bitter. They both know that's a lie, or at perhaps code for, 'scared myself again and have gone rabbiting off to prove I can still run.' Dick's a classic commitment-phobe and at this point Barbara doesn't think to wonder why.

(two)

Old habits die hard. That's what she thinks when she realizes that Bruce has stood her up. He's just being the Bruce she remembers. Right? Right. And it's not as if they're together or anything; Bruce has Selina and she has Dick, when he isn't running from responsibility.

But it still hurts.

Probably some Bat-related emergency happened. That's all it is. No reason to get all worked up, Babs.

Yeah, right, she thinks. You only wish.

(three)

Call me at 04:00.

He signed it with the Bat emblem. Isn't that cute. How the hell did that note get into her coffee mug?

She decides not to think about it.

Instead, she calls him at 04:00, as he requested.

"Are you sorry you stood me up?" She asks as soon as he answers the phone. Her voice is a little teasing, a little accusative.

He is silent for several long moments.

"Did you hang up?"

"I'm still here."

There's no emphasis on the 'I'm', but she hears it anyway. She thinks of Dick automatically, of the fact that he's gone again and that Bruce is still here and is listening to her, even if he stood her up.

"Good," she said.

A long silence. Then, "Would you like to spar sometime?"

She makes a split-second decision and can feel in her bones that it will change the rest of her life.

"Yes. When?"

(four)

They are circling each other. Rather, she is circling him and he is staying still to conserve energy. That's becoming more and more a concern of his and she feels a sharp pang as she finally recognizes a sign of aging.

She launches a flip kick, bringing her forward foot up and out in something very similar to a roundhouse. He evades it easily.

She evades his punch and tries to place a kick in his side. He blocks and uses the block to knock her off balance.

Within moments, sparring has become grappling. The transition is easy. There's only a little awkwardness. She's too used to him, she thinks, too used to being part of this bat family.

She doesn't mind it a bit.

(five)

In the darkness of the cave, Bruce admits to himself that he was wrong to neglect Barbara's training for so long. The truth is, she never seemed to be in his jurisdiction.

It feels strange to admit it, but she's always been more Dick's than his.

And now, suddenly, she's more his than Dick's.

It's Dick's own fault, part of him thinks. Another part thinks, she needs more training.

The rest of him is unnerved by this new way of relating to her. It's uncharted territory and he doesn't like that. He's never really liked uncharted territory in interpersonal relationships.

He's becoming too close to his (admittedly estranged) son's girlfriend.

(six)

They do a stakeout together. It's boring as all hell, but somehow not, because she's near him.

Why isn't it boring?

Why does she feel the same way when she's with Bruce on stakeout as she used to feel with Dick?

Could her loyalties be shifting?

It's no wonder, she tells herself as she watches the warehouse for signs of movement. Dick is withdrawing more and more, and she's so tired of pursuing him. He's pissy and tiring and commitment-phobic and it drives her crazy. So it's no wonder she's being drawn to somebody ELSE in the nightlife, somebody who would understand, somebody who can understand her frustrations.

Pity he's just about old enough to be her father. Pity he's her boyfriend's father.

A pity, she realises with a terrifying cold chill and an excited jolt along her spine, that she doesn't much care.

(seven)

The first time she kisses him, it's almost a whim. Almost. Not exactly planned, but she's been wanting to for long enough that it isn't a whim.

"Did you miss me?" She breathes.

"You never left," he says, not exactly confused but obviously not taking her meaning.

"Well, I haven't seen you since last night." She laughs and then shakes her head. There's a knife edge of despair and shame and the certainty that she's going to be rejected in her spine. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that, should I?"

He is silent for a long while. "Don't be sorry," he says.

"So you feel it, too." The knot that had suddenly formed in her stomach unclenches. "We shouldn't be... feeling this, should we?"

"Feelings are irrational. Your attraction is understandable. Dick is... drifting away from you, most likely because of his own insecurities. I'm... not."

His tone is dispassionate and damn if that doesn't hurt as much as Dick's sudden disappearances.

"Are we..."

He looks at her for a single, grave, heartrending moment and she is sure he is going to say no. But he doesn't.

"Yes."

(eight)

She will regret every moment of this relationship. Thirty years from now. Three days from now. Maybe she regrets it already.

Dick had issues and she loved him anyway. He learned half his issues from Bruce, who has issues and whom she loves anyway. It's doomed from the start, of course. The only person who could keep up with him, could truly keep up with him, was Catwoman and she's impossible to find.

She didn't want to be the love of his life, she tells herself to make it stop hurting.

Only she did. Only she does.

Right now, right this instant, she is tracing the curve of his jaw as he sleeps and wondering what he's dreaming.

END TRANSMISSION

 


End file.
